The World We Live In
by PrussianOverlord
Summary: Diedrich Beilschmidt isn't new to the work place but he is new to having a younger man being his supervisor. Lively Italian Romulus Vargas keeps him on his toes, but its not always a good thing. This story eventually parallels "A Turk and a German." Rated M for language and possible adult situations later on - Please Read and Review and enjoy - Humor/Romance/Angst
1. Chapter 1

The World We Live In is Full of Mischief

June 31st, 2006

Staring into his mirror, Diedrich Beilschmidt stood putting a thin, long braid into his waist length blond hair. Today would be the first day of his new job at the local steel mill.

Being in his mid-fifties, one would think he'd have a retirement fund set up, and he would have had he been able to keep a job. Diedrich's shortest time in a job was two months. His longest time was two years. It was all because of his attitude. He tended to be quite calm in the work place and he didn't get angered easily, but when he snapped, well... Let's not delve into that horrific subject...

It was 6 o'clock in the morning when Diedrich left his house; however, he didn't need to be at work till 8. The mill was only about five minutes away so he decided to stop at Dunkin' Donuts to get some coffee. Pulling out of the drive thru, he pulled the cup to his lips, not caring if it was hot or not. As he drove onto the road, he immediately had to stop for the traffic light, causing the car behind him to slam into his back bumper. Diedrich groaned in dismay as his coffee spilled all over the front of his new uniform.

Stepping out of his car, he was greeted by a blond teenage boy yelling at him. "Look what you did to my fucking car!" It was just a scratch. "Now I'm gonna be late for work!" What job allowed employees to wear wife-beaters and saggy jeans to work? "I GOING TO FUCKING SUE YOUR ASS!" Yeah, good luck with that.

This young man wasn't backing down, but it was hard for Diedrich to actually take him seriously; not only was he poorly dressed, he was very short. His fiery green eyes were fighting with Diedrich's intimidating, ice-y blue ones.

"Excuse me, but not of this of this would have happened had you been paying attention to the traffic lights. _You_ hit _my _car."

"_You_ pulled out in front of me!" The other stood on his toes and puffed out his chest trying to seem bigger.

"Well you should've been paying attention to cars pulling onto the road!"

"YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO CARS THAT WERE **ALREADY ON** THE ROAD!" Diedrich used his height advantage to stand over the teen, looking down him, but this seemed to make the other angrier.

"Oh, I see what this is, you think you're better than me cuz you're bigger, huh?!"

Oh God, an insecure short person. Said short person proceeded to whip out a pistol and shove the tip in Diedrich's face. "WHO'S THE BIG MAN NOW MOTHERFUCKER!"

Police sirens began to wail. Luckily, a patrol car had just turned the corner and was coming to Diedrich's rescue. The cops pulled up and the teen was immediately scrambling to get back into his car. Diedrich stood back as two officers began to wrestle teen to the ground, being wary of the gun that was still in his hand.

Once they had him in cuffs and in the back seat of the patrol car, they went to Diedrich for information on the incident. He received a ticket for pulling into oncoming traffic recklessly, but he didn't mind. He had demanded the name of the teen who had hit him.

"Oh, that little punk? His name's Vash Zwingly. He's in an out of Juvie alot, mostly due to pulling bb guns on people. The brat's going to prison this time though. He's now 18, and you're lucky he didn't fire; that gun was real and loaded."

Diedrich blinked a couple of times. _I was_ _close to being killed... Damn... _He bid the policemen a nice day and climbed back into his vehicle. Looking at the clock he saw it was 7 o' clock. _Plenty of time to get to work and calm down these nerves._

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Stepping into the building he immediately got looks from other coworkers. Then he suddenly remembered the large coffee stain on his uniform. _Sheiße, what a first impression..._

"Hey Blondie!" Diedrich winced at the nickname and looked to find the owner of the voice. The man had curly brown hair and golden eyes. He was smiling, but Diedrich couldn't help but feel this was one of his higher-ups ready to comment on his outfit.

"Welcome aboard!" The man pulled out a stick of _Tide: Instant Stain Remover _and handed it to Diedrich. "The name's Romulus Vargas, Head Floor Supervisor, but you can call Roma; everyone calls me that. And you must be Diedrich Beilschmidt, our new engineer! I'll call you... Dee! Now, you should go to the bathroom and take care of that stain before you clock-in and the boss sees you."

Just like that, the odd man disappeared. Judging by the accent, attitude, and nickname, Diedrich assumed Roma was Italian. It was hard for him to believe this man would be his supervisor.

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Uniform stainless, Diedrich now felt at home in this large industrious building. He now had to find Romulus to find out what his task for the day would be. This was easier said than done. He began asking the other workers about him, but all seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder.

Eventually he found an office room full of cubicles and there he found Romulus chatting with a young intern. When the Italian saw Diedrich, he beamed and cut off his conversation.

"Hey, Dee! What do you need from old Roma?"

"Well, I was wondering about my job. What do I have to do today?"

"Oh, well, duh! I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier! Come with me!" They left the office area and went to the main work floor. There were bud-saws, small cranes, forklifts, and various other types of machinery. The thing that worried Diedrich the most was the amount of sharp steel sheets lying around the floor. They generally seemed to stay around a central area, but there were still pieces gone astray.

"Your job is to make sure the equipment is working as it should, plain and simple. Be extra careful around the steel. Don't pick any pieces up; we have guys for that, and obviously it seems they want the new guy to get hurt. I'll go talk to them about it. Now just go around and check on the machines. I'll be back to check on you around the lunch time, 'kay?"

Romulus walked away and did as he said; he called over a couple of men who were slacking off and talked to them. Once the conversation was over, he saw the few men carefully begin picking up stray pieces of steel and throwing them away in their designated bins. Giving a sigh of relief, Diedrich went to go do his own job.

Just as Diedrich finished inspecting the last piece of machinery, a shrill bell rang throughout the building, signifying that lunch had begun. Romulus greeted him off the floor and they walked to the small cafeteria. The Italian had a big unnerving smile on his face as they sat down, but apparently he wore this grin 24/7.

"So how's your day been so far? I haven't seen you once take a break! You really are a hard worker! My day's been fun; I've been chatting up that new intern. She's cute, isn't she? I've never seen a girl..." Diedrich munched on his turkey sandwich, tuning out everything Romulus said since it was obvious he wasn't going to shut up anytime soon.

It wasn't till the lunch hour had ended that the stream of words flowing past Roma's mouth ended as well. _Sweet relief,_ thought Diedrich as he stood up and started walking towards the door. His escape was interrupted as a hand clapped onto his shoulder.

"So Dee, I've read your résumé. Are you really 54 years old? You don't look that old. I'm 52!" Say what now? 52? Diedrich stared at the Italian in shock. If he had been to guess, he would've thought Romulus was 30.

"Um, yes, I am 54. You honestly don't seem your own age as well."

"Ah, grazie! We're the oldest two men here, isn't that funny? Plus I'm younger than you and I'm your superior, ha!" Yeah, real funny, Captain Obvious.

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Hours later Diedrich went home. The entire day after lunch, Romulus had followed him on his routine checks on the machinery. Diedrich had to wonder if the man ever stopped talking.

Pulling into his driveway, his phone began to ring. It was his son, Max calling to ask him if he wouldn't mind watching his grandsons, Ludwig and Gilbert for the summer. Diedrich wanted to decline because of his job, but he could never resist seeing Ludwig. The albino was another problem, however.

Diedrich had been adamant about not wanting a thing to do with his oldest grandson; his mother had been a conniving bitch and the boy was nothing but an annoying ball of energy. It was ray of sunshine when Ludwig's mother came into the picture. Now don't get him wrong; Diedrich loved both of his grandson's, but sadly, he had chosen a favorite.

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Diedrich was greeted at Max's door by his grandsons. They were both talking a-mile-a-minute telling him about their previous school year, about their plans for this summer, and about how much fun the three of them were going to have. Diedrich hardly had enough time to say 'hi' to his son when Max and his wife slipped by him and ran to the car. They had dumped him with the kids so they could go on a cruise for the next two months. _Happy-happy joy-joy God fuck my life..._

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**Alrighty then! Well, first off, I'm sorry for making Vash what he was, but I love doing the whole 'short joke' with him. And don't worry! He will be seen again but not till way later in the story.**

**I'm also sorry if everyone seems a little OOC and if Rome and Germania's names and age seem lame and such. Chapters in all my stories will hopefully be longer in the future. ^-^ Hope y'all enjoyed and please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

I am horribly sorry folks for all the update waits, and I am also sorry for this bit of news. I am eventually taking down all stories and revising them. Of course I am keeping the old until the new versions are finished. I have had such wonderful feedback on all my stories and I'd just like to make them all better. I'm a very self-critical writer who strives to better and all my stories are crap because usually I'll write and write and then update without revising.

_Mein Bruder im Keller_ is the big one that needs revising, everytime I read it, I die a little inside. Its pretty much the same with _The World We Live In,_ which need some serious revision as well. I'm fond of _A Turk and a German_ but I just fell the chapters could be longer.

There won't be very large changes to the stories; there are going to be more details added to stuff that's already happened, and with _The World We Live In,_ I have no idea what goes on in a steel factory, so I'm changing Dee's job, but he's still an engineer of some kind and Roma is his higher-up. I am so keeping loud-mouthed angry Switzerland :D Angry midgets are always fun

_Mein Bruder im Keller _has details that I need to change because quite frankly I don't know much about the actual history of Prussia and what went down in the World Wars.

_A Turk and a German..._ It just really needs more details and longer chapters. And that includes a longer scene in the club at the beginning. Turkey and Spain were supposed to say more and Prussia was supposed to act more dramatic, but I suck at writing so... This is why I prefer drawing to writing.

Anyways, if anyone would like to help me with ideas or changes, all criticism is welcome; just don't you know bite my head off or something :) I will do my best to finish everything as quick as possible, but that'll be a true feat as I now have my junior year of high school to worry about... And I'm the biggest procrastinator in the world.

Well, see you awesome people later... off to finish a big Spanish project due Tuesday ^_^ Tee-Hee


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